Autonomous Rover Exploration System (ARES)

Faculty Advisor: Melvin Rafi

Industry Mentor: General Atomics

Summary: The ARES (Autonomous Rover Exploration System) project involves developing and prototyping a network of rovers that can function autonomously and cooperatively. When deployed within an area of interest, the successful rover network will be able to communicate and make decisions amongst themselves to navigate within the area, avoid obstacles, locate a target of interest, and move towards the target of interest.

Key Requirements:

1. The rover network shall include at least three rovers and at most five rovers.
2. The rover platform may be custom-built or obtained as a Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) unit. For COTS units, teams should anticipate the need to modify the rover platform and integrate additional hardware (eg. Sensors, communications equipment, miscellaneous electronics).
3. Each rover shall have a volumetric footprint of at most 30 cm length x 30 cm width x 30 cm height.
4. Each rover shall have an endurance of at least 60 minutes.
5. Each rover shall be able to function and operate in temperatures ranging from 15°C to 25°C.
6. Each rover shall be able to sense and record system states (including but not limited to position, velocity, acceleration, battery states, time states, and other tbd states as deemed appropriate).
7. Each rover shall be able to wirelessly communicate necessary ‘state’ information to other rovers within the rover network in real-time.
8. The rovers shall be able to autonomously and cooperatively navigate within an ‘area of interest’.
9. The rovers shall be able to autonomously navigate around ‘obstacles’ within the area of interest.
10. The rovers shall be able to autonomously navigate over ‘terrain features’ without having its movement impeded.
11. The rovers shall be able to autonomously and cooperatively search for, locate, and navigate toward a ‘target of interest’ within the area of interest within a predetermined amount of time.